


fuck it, i'm making my own: a guide to dragon age elvish

by mermaidhanji



Series: fuck it, i'm making my own: a guide to dragon age elvish [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Elves, Elvish, jewish author, jewish elves, trans author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26553784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermaidhanji/pseuds/mermaidhanji
Summary: my own translations and expansions on dragon age elvish.
Series: fuck it, i'm making my own: a guide to dragon age elvish [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931044





	1. foreword

SO, here is where i'm compiling my posts from my [elvish tag on tumblr](https://thedreadgay.tumblr.com/tagged/elvish). these will include translations from canon and explanations of my own expansions. a few things to note:

  * since elvish is a cipher for english, it's an absolute disaster. grammar is a nightmare and pretty much doesn't exist. you don't have to be precise with it; slap it together and it'll be understandable. flow of the language is more important than grammar.
  * it's meant to sound soft and melodic! even for harder consonants like q or g, it's meant to sound softer. as a general rule of thumb: A is pronounced like 'ah,' E like 'eh,' and I like 'ee.'
  * elvish is a poetic language that relies on inference and context; in canon it's called a 'game of intents,' so you have to work with cultural understanding as well, not just direct translation. keep that in mind!



LET'S GO FELLAS!!!


	2. expansion: familial terms

FIRST, i want to introduce some basic roots and concepts. i am deciding that **lethal** , as in **lethallen** , means kin. len/lan/lin means person (neutral/fem/masc respectively), so lethallen can translate to ‘one who is my kin’. lin can also mean blood, so lethallin can also mean ‘blood kin’, which i imagine has essentially the same meaning! different clans just use different words.

i’ll be using **lin** , blood, quite a bit to describe relations, which DOESN’T MEAN THOSE YOU’RE BORN TO ARE YOUR ONLY FAMILY, it means family is those you share your life with! blood is life! think of it in the sense of ‘blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb’.

i also wanted a word for share/shared/sharing, so i combined athim (humility) and las (give, grant) to make **athila** ; sharing defined as humble giving. to share something connects you!

i imagine that elvhen consider children to be gifts and blessings, so i’ll be incorporating **enansal** (blessing) into the terms for children.

i had some words for cousins that ended up being really long and i just didn’t like them that much, so i shortened it to meaning ‘parallel blood,’ as in you and your cousin are parallel since your parents are siblings + a lot of cousins grow up together. i’m making the word for ‘parallel’ **arela.**

taking from **sa’vunin** (one more day) and **bellanaris** (eternity, many years), i’m gathering that -in is a suffix for ‘addition’ and -is is a plural suffix.

for the sake of counting how many greats your numerous grandparents or grandchildren are, if **sa** is 1 and **tan** is 3, i’m saying **san** is 2.

for finding words for marriage, if **dirthavaren** means promise, and dirth relates to knowledge or speaking, then i’m saying **avare** means oath, covenant, or bond (making the word for promise ‘spoken oath’).

and a note on pronunciation: when we get to the long words that are other words smashed together, put emphasis on the first syllable to maintain a melodic sort of rhythm. with all that in mind, let’s go!!!

  * **athillethal** , athim + las + lethal, ‘shared kin’ or ‘we who share kin’, a term for in-laws.
  * **lethal’him** , lethal + him, ‘become kin’ or ‘one i became kin with’, is someone you became family with, in the many ways one can choose their family; found family, marriage, etc.
  * **banalethal** , banal + lethal, ‘not kin’, is someone who isn’t part of your family, and implies severing of ties as opposed to **tellethal** , tel + lethal, also ‘not kin’, which just means someone who isn’t related to you.
  * **mirlin** , + mir + lin, ‘my blood’, a term for a sibling.
  * if **arela** is ‘parallel,’ then cousin would be **arelin,** ‘parallel blood.’ this probably wouldn’t be used very often, as it’s more for like. saying ‘___ is my biological cousin’ rather than calling someone cousin, which would probably just be **lethallen.**



we know **mamae** is the word for mother. let’s go off of that and say **papae** is father, and **sasae** is parent (based that off zaza, which is my fave gender neutral term like mama/papa). so we could say:

  * **saelin** , len + sasae + lin, ‘my parent’s blood’, a term for aunt/uncle.
  * you could also specify the person as your mother or father’s sibling. **maelin** , for example, would be ‘my mother’s blood’. most people probably don’t make those specifications but ya can!!!



so remember how i mentioned that **enansal** is part of the words for children? this is in relation to like, your children, and is different from **da’len** , which is more for like… calling someone ‘little one’ as a term of endearment. you’re not referring to them as your Actual child, like the difference between calling a masc person younger than you ‘son’ versus introducing someone with ‘this is my son’. part of what brought me to that conclusion was considering **da’lan** and **da’lin** as ‘daughter’ and ‘son’, respectively, but i realized that’d probably be more along the lines of ‘little girl’ and ‘little boy’ rather than your actual children. SO, this is what i thought of instead:

  * **enansallen** , enansal + len, ‘one who is a blessing’, a gender neutral term for child. **enansallan** is daughter, **enansallin** is son. adding the prefix **da’** would make ‘little child/daughter/son’, the youngest of your children.
  * remember how i determinedthe suffix **-in** to be additional? we’ll be using this for the terms for grandchildren. **e’nansal-in** , len + enansal + -in, ‘one who is another blessing’ or ‘one who is my child’s blessing’, is a term for grandchild. **a’nansal-in** is granddaughter, **i’nansal-in** is grandson.
  * when we get into great and great great grandkids, we’ll be counting generations of more blessings.
  * i decided that **san** is 2. your second generation of blessings from blessings, your great-grandchildren, would be **sane’nansal-inis** , san + len + enansal + -in (plural). your great great grandchildren, third generation of additional blessings, would be **tane’nansal-inis**.



now we can move onto grandparents!

  * **saehahren** , sasae + hahren, ‘elder parent’, a term for grandparent. **maehahren** is grandmother, **paehahren** is grandfather. you can drop the -ren for something more cutesy or casual; **paehah** , for example, would be like grampy or gramps.
  * for great grandparents, like great grandkids, we start thinking in terms of generations of elders. your grandparents are the first/closest generation of elders.
  * your second closest generation of elders, your great-grandparents, would then be **san’saehahrenis** , san + sasae + hahren (plural). your great great-grandparents, your third closest generation of elders, would be **tan’saehahrenis** , tan + sasae + hahren (plural).
  * for great aunts/uncles/etc, we can say **saehahlin** , sasae + hahren + lin, ‘my grandparent’s blood’. again, you can specify your grandmother’s sibling with **maehahlin** or your grandfather’s sibling with **paehahlin**.
  * though dropping the -ren when referring to just your grandparent is casual, doing so in the terms for great aunt/uncle/etc is just for flow of the language and isn’t considered less formal in that context.
  * **elgahren** , elgar + hahren, ‘spirit elder’, is a term for an ancestor.



and now, marriage!

  * **lathlen** , lath + len, ‘one i love/one who loves me’, is a term for a lover. **lathlan** is fem lover, **lathlin** is masc lover.
  * **avarellen** , avare + lath + len, ‘one i have an oath of love with’, is a term for a spouse. **avarellan** is wife, **avarellin** is husband. this is different from **linavare** , lin + avare, ‘blood oath’, which i imagine is a very serious life-or-death oath.




	3. translation: temple of mythal and vir dirthara

**malas amelin ne halam:** how solas says he hopes abelas finds a new name.

 _halam_ is end, and _malas_ is a word for ‘your,’ or a second person pronoun. _lin_ is blood. _ame_ , i’m guessing, means ‘keeper,’ since dirthamen is called the keeper of secrets, and _dirth_ can mean ‘secret.’ maybe _amelin_ is just the word for ‘name,’ as a name is a person’s essence! **malas amelin ne halam** would translate to _**your name has ended,**_ or _**your keeping of this blood has ended.**_ basically, solas is assuring abelas that this part of his life is over, and he doesn’t have to be defined by sorrow anymore.

 **masal din’an:** said by abelas if the inquisitor refuses the alliance. i’ve been having trouble figuring out absolutes, but elvish doesn’t really work that way anyway, so the gist of **masal din’an:** **_you’re dead._**

 **vir sumeil:** said by the guide in the temple, translated by solas as ‘we’re close.’ _vir_ is path, so my guess is **vir sumeil: _the path draws near._**

 **ghilas vellathan:** said by the guide, politely translated as ‘i prefer you remain close.’ she seems pretty annoyed by you poking around and stuff, and _ghil_ is guide, so i imagine **ghilas vellathan** is something like _**follow your guide,**_ making _vellatha_ ‘follow.’

 **penshra:** the guide also says this before the phrase above. i have no idea what it means, but by her annoyance, it sounds like an insult. since in this context the inquisitor isn’t sticking by her side and is lookin around in this beautiful temple that they’ve fought to preserve and what not, i imagine **penshra** would be something like _**bumbling fool.**_

 **delltash:** this is said by the guide in the temple when sera tries to speak elvish, and by the librarians in vir dirthara.

mary kirby has said that some of the librarians’ lines mean things like ‘no talking in the library’ and ‘your books are overdue’, which is obviously hilarious but that’s besides the point. one of their lines is **tel’dellan sa vir dirthara;** i’m guessing this one means ‘no talking in the library,’ since _tel_ is a negative prefix (not, without, etc) and _vir dirthara_ is the library. _dirth_ means speak, but it also means knowledge, so i think speaking in the context of _dirth_ is more about sharing knowledge. what librarians hate is NOISE. so i think _dell_ means ‘noise,’ making **tel’dellan sa vir dirthara:** _**don’t be noisy in the library.**_

if _dell_ has to do with noise, then _tash_ COULD mean ‘stop,’ but again, elvish is very poetic and i just don’t think that’s quite its style. my guess is _tash_ means ‘silence,’ making **delltash:** _**quiet your noise/shut up.**_

 **seran viar malas shivera mellavar:** spoken by the librarians.

 _melava_ is one of the words for ‘time,’ in which case i guessed this one was ‘your books are overdue’. _malas_ is a word for ‘your,’ and since _halam’shivanas_ is ‘the sweet sacrifice of duty,’ i imagine the root word _shiv_ or _shive_ has to do with duty or responsibility. according to solas, the root word _sera_ is common, and it appears in words to do with politeness and courtesy, like _ma serannas_ (thank you) and _ara-seranna ma_ (pardon me). _via_ is a root that’s part of _eluvian_ , which translated literally, means ‘looking glass.’ but obviously, eluvians aren’t just mirrors, they’re pathways that are opened with knowledge, which is why i propose that _via_ is a word for something that retains knowledge, which for ancient elves, includes glass. it can also be a word for books, or memories, like the funky memory-books you find in vir dirthara.

throw it all together with elvish’s meandering, **seran viar malas shivera mellavar** means something like: _**be courteous, you’re responsible for your books being on time.**_

 **ghilas dennar:** spoken by the librarians. in the context of them attacking you, talking like dorky librarians, and _ghil,_ i’m guessing that _denn_ means something like ‘away,’ making **ghilas dennar: _see yourself out._**


	4. translation: solas dialogue

i wanted to try my hand at translating some of solas’ dialogue!

 **ar dirthan’as ir elgara, ma’sula e’var vhenan:** solas says this to sera to see if she can feel the flow of the language.

 _ar_ and _ir_ are first person pronouns, ‘i’ and ‘my.’ _dirth_ is for knowledge held or shared, and i’m pretty sure _-as_ is a suffix for a verb, an action. _elgara_ is ‘sun,’ though maybe it’s possible solas is talking about spirit, which is _elgar_ , and it’s just like. conjugated somehow. it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case since elvish relies on inference and context, so someone who knew what they were talking about could make that distinction (and if the person they were speaking to knew what they were talking about they could understand), but for now, and since sera doesn’t know elvish, i’m guessing he meant ‘sun.’

 _sula_ could be related to _suli,_ which means ‘untorn,’ so it could also be ‘unbroken’ or ‘whole.’ _ma_ is ‘you,’ _var_ is ‘our,’ _vhenan_ is ‘heart.’ all together, since the grammar of elvish is wishy-washy, **ar dirthan’as ir elgara, ma’sula e’var vhenan** would be something like _**i speak of my sun, in our heart you are whole.**_

solas is looking for a connection, seeing if sera will respond to his elvish in some way; he holds knowledge and speaks of his center, the core of his personhood, his sun. elvish expresses connection between people, or the people, heart, and home; _elvhen_ are ‘the people,’ _vhenan_ is ‘heart,’ _vhenas_ is ‘home.’ by making the distinction of ‘our’ and one, single heart, i think what he’s saying is that in connection with elven personhood, which he has just expressed in himself, sera is ‘whole.’ which is kind of an asshole thing to imply that someone could not be whole, but solas is an asshole who looks down on modern elves so it fits lol.

 **din elvhen emma him?** this is said by solas in this banter between him and sera:

> **Solas:** Our people used to be here.  
>  **Sera:** Pfft, you say that everywhere. **  
> Solas:** It is more true than you want to believe.  
>  **Sera:** I bet, right? Who wants to think about stepping on dead elves? **  
> Solas:** Din elvhen emma him?  
>  **Sera:** Oh, you felt that one.

from tone, sera can tell solas is making some cutting remark. breaking it down, _din_ means ‘dead,’ or the dead. _emma_ is ‘within,’ and _him_ is ‘become.’ since it’s posed as a question, **din elvhen emma him?** would mean something like, _**you want to become the dead elf within you?**_ which could be along the lines of ‘you’re just ACHING to be a dead elf here in a minute buddy,’ but it could also be a whole lot more biting, like ‘you’re already dead to your peoplehood, why not be dead bodily?’ which, considering this is solas talking to sera, would make sense.

i also noticed that nightmare’s first line to solas wasn’t translated on dragon age wiki, so i thought i’d do it!

 **dirth ma, harellan. ma banal enasalin: _speak you, traitor. your victory is empty._** talking about how solas succeeded in sealing away the evanuris, but he destroyed elvhenan in the process.

**mar solas ena mar din: _your pride will be your death.  
_ banal nadas: _nothing is inevitable._**


	5. translation: evanuris

so, **evanuris** is translated by the dalish viddathari in trespasser as ‘leaders.’ the word seems to come from the root _evanura,_ which is written in the letter when the inquisitor receives the red hart. _evanuris_ may be a word for leaders, but i think its literal meaning is something different, based both on context and how elvish doesn’t tend to be so direct like that.

in the red hart letter, there are two different phrases, one for an elven inquisitor and one for a non-elven inquisitor.

elven: **emmasalin var suledin evanura  
** non-elven: **mas enasalin lasa revas evanura**

let’s break down the first one. _emma_ is ‘within,’ and by the phrase for a non-elven inquisitor, we can gather it’s conjugated with _enasalin,_ ‘victory.’ _var_ is ‘our,’ _suledin_ is ‘endure.’ _**within victory, our enduring [evanura].**_ for the next one, _mas_ is a word for ‘your,’ _lasa_ is ‘grant/give,’ and _revas_ is ‘freedom.’ _**your victory grants freedom [evanura].**_

i don’t think it would be ‘leader,’ because even tho the inquisitor IS a leader, it seems more like a well-wish. ‘in victory, our enduring leader,’ / ‘may your victory grant freedom, leader,’ but that just doesn’t seem right. this is the sort of thing where u have to look at it and think, what would FIT here given the context? the first word that came to me, that i think would fit, is ‘prosperity.’

**emmasalin var suledin evanura: _within victory, our enduring prosperity.  
_ mas enasalin lasa revas evanura: _may your victory grant prosperous freedom._**

that makes a whole lot more sense, right? so, i propose that **evanura** means something like _**prosperity,**_ which would make the title **evanuris** translate to _**the prosperous.**_ seems fitting for a group of leaders-turned-tyrants.


	6. translation: fen'harel's sanctuary

i wanted to try to break down the exchanges between the inquisitor and the spirits at fen’harel’s sanctuary!

 **nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma:** this is how the spirits ask for fen’harel’s secret greeting.

 _nuven_ seems to be a root word for talking or expression; in all new faded for her, solas saying _ma nuvenin_ to his spirit friend translates to ‘as you say.’ _dirth_ is also a word for speaking, but since it’s also a word for knowledge, secrets, and learning, i think _dirth_ means talking more in the sense of sharing knowledge. _nuven,_ i believe, is more about speaking in the sense of expressing something, and _-as_ is a suffix for an action. _mana_ seems to be one of the many ways to conjugate a second person pronoun (’your,’ i’m guessing in this case). if _hellathen_ is an old word for ‘noble struggle,’ i assume _then_ could be related to _thadra,_ which is ‘honour,’ making _then_ ‘noble’ and _hela_ ‘struggle.’ _-in_ is a suffix for something in addition, and _bell_ is ‘many.’

put that all together, and **nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma** is something like: _**speak your struggle, you must know many.**_

the correct greeting is **ar-melana dirthavaren. revas vir-anaris.** _ar_ is a first person pronoun, ‘i,’ _melana_ is a word for ‘time,’ _dirthavaren_ is ‘promise,’ _revas_ is ‘freedom,’ _vir_ is ‘path’ or ‘way,’ and _anaris_ means ‘years.’ **ar-melana dirthavaren. revas vir-anaris: _i promise time. freedom is a path of years._** this seems to be about endurance and lasting commitment, which makes sense for an oath by immortal elves; those fen’harel trusted promised all their years to the cause of freedom. they’re also promising time to speak of the many struggles they know, not all their own.

after you give the correct greeting, the spirits say: **amae lethalas.** _amae_ could be related to _ame,_ ‘keeper.’ _lethal_ is ‘kin,’ so combined with the suffix _-as,_ **amae lethalas** would be something like: _**keep kinship.**_ continue to act as kin would, and hold it dear.

if you get the greeting wrong, the spirits say **virthar ma.** i haven’t figured this one out; _ma_ is ‘you,’ but idk if _virthar_ is _vir_ smashed together with something else, or its own word _._ i don’t think we’ve seen _thar_ as a root for anything in particular in canon, and figuring out what would go in the middle of ‘way something you’ in this context is difficult. they could just be going FUCK YOU for all i know lmao.

WAIT ACTUALLY THEY COULD JUST BE SAYING FUCK YOU. if _thar_ means something negative, like ‘foul,’ it would be like wishing ‘a foul path on you.’ that seems a bit of stretch tho lol but it’s an idea.


	7. expansion: jewish things

dragon age elves are super jewish coded but it always pissed me off that the devs seemed to just take aspects of our suffering for coding, more than actual jewish stuff. so like, fuck it, mine now! here’s a few jewish things for elvish.

 **atish’all** seems to be an ancient elvish greeting (inscribed in the temple of mythal and said by the spirits in fen’harel’s sanctuary). _atisha_ means ‘peace,’ and _andaran atish’an_ is one of the authentic jewish things about elves, because we also greet each other by wishing peace (shalom)!!!!

one big Important Thing for us is life. we’re a pragmatic people; it’s important that we use the life we have well, to do good things and be good people, and life is a wonderful thing to have!!! most of our holidays are celebrations of the fact that we are alive!!!! so what i propose is that _all_ means ‘life,’ making **atish’all: _peace and life._**

using the life that we have to do good things is part of a concept called tikkun olam, repair of the world. the idea is that we share the world, so we should put effort into making it a nice place to live, so we’ll leave it a better place than when we entered it. i’m putting _**repair of the world**_ into elvish as **tisun’olam;** _tisun_ for ‘repair’ or ‘healing,’ and _olam_ meaning the world in a broad, ideological sense, which is different from _vhen’alas,_ a word from canon that seems to be more about land or the planet itself. (i’m also gonna say that **tisulen** would then mean _**healer.**_ )

we perform tikkun olam through tzedakah, a concept which i can probably best translate as equity. it’s often translated as charity, but that’s just not quite it, cause charity has a connotation of like. going out of your way to do something nice and wow isn’t that so great of you!!! that’s not it. tzedakah is rooted in tzedek, hebrew for justice, because that’s what tzedakah is for us: it’s justice, it’s doing the right thing. if you have food/money to spare, you share it with someone who needs it more than you do; if someone needs a place to stay and your couch is free, you offer it. it’s just what you DO. so putting it into elvish, **sede** is _**justice,**_ and tzedakah is **sede’a: _acting on justice._**

for one of my fics, i wanted to detail elven shiva, a jewish mourning practice for recently deceased family members. if _halam’shivanas_ means ‘the sweet sacrifice of duty,’ i figured i would take _shive_ to mean ‘duty’ and say _va_ is a root for grief or mourning, making **shiva: _mourning duty._** it’s a way of giving space to your own grief, so as a ‘duty,’ it’s not just for your family member, but for yourself.

and lastly, i wanted words for some jewish clothing! it’s a mitzvah to cover our heads to feel the presence of divinity, so i wanted a word in elvish for a kippah or tichel. i’m using _tia_ (as in tiara) as a root for something you wear on your head, and decided to combine it with _elgar,_ ‘spirit,’ making **eltia: _spirit veil._** aside from feeling the presence of divinity, wearing an _eltia_ could be an old practice of covering part of the physical to help get in touch with the spiritual, or could symbolize the gaze of a person’s ancestors watching over them. i also wanted a word for a prayer shawl, and decided on **sirith,** a tolkien elvish word meaning ‘flow,’ like a flowing shawl.

shanah tovah!!!!


End file.
